The Trouble with Little Tree - Book Report/Review Example

November 21, The Trouble with Little Tree I read “The Education of Little Tree” (F. Carter) and I liked itokay but it was sometimes boring. It was interesting to read about Cherokee history and culture, though, and how it was taught by his Cherokee grandparents to the author, when he was a child. I was interested in how nature was this kid’s classroom and also a religion, because of how his grandfather taught him. He learned very useful things, like when to plant crops. He learned spiritual things from the wind and the storm and the leaves, and he talked to trees (F. Carter). I thought it was cool how they collected herbs in the woods, together, and his Grandpa spent time explaining deep things to him (F. Carter). And it was sad how White racism caused him to suffer at school (F. Carter). Little Tree, who was Little Sprout at first, had the racism of White people pushed in his face a lot, His Grandfather taught him to just ignore it (F. Carter). On the other hand, he had good experiences. He was taught about ecology, living in balance with nature, for example, in the ways Grandpa hunted and the attitudes he expressed about it. It was a style of living called, “The Way”. His Grandma read good books to him and to Grandpa (Grandpa couldn’t read) (F. Carter). I was feeling mostly good about the story, even though the plot was simple and it kind of dragged real slow in places, until near the end. I went online to find some sources that would help me think about it more. To my surprise, I found out more than I ever wanted to know. It turns out the author was a fake (D. T. Carter). I say “was” because he is dead now (D. T. Carter), which is no big loss I guess, since he was a person filled with hate and he was especially racist (D. T. Carter). People I know who are racist usually just don’t like a particular group of people, but this author was against more than one group. For one thing, he didn’t like Jews. He also hated Russian Communists. He especially didn’t like Blacks (D. T. Carter). He’s the guy who wrote a speech for George Wallace that said, “Segregation now…….Segregation tomorrow…….Segregation Forever” (Italie). He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (D. T. Carter). He was in charge of a paramilitary group of Klansmen who castrated a Black man and attacked Nat King Cole (D. T. Carter). He tried to murder the District Attorney and even tried to kill two of his fellow Klansmen. In his opinion, Black policemen were the uncivilized descendants of cannibals (D. T. Carter). He had a right wing radio show so that he could express his hatred regularly, and try to infect others (D. T. Carter). It was his relative that wrote an article, after the author died, explaining what a fake the guy was (D. T. Carter). Even Oprah Winfrey took his book off her list of books she tells people to read (Italie). A lot of people were upset about this book. It wasn’t just some book nobody ever reads (Italie). It was a book that won prizes (Italie), a book that was on the best-seller list for months (D. T. Carter). It was a book teachers assign their classes to read (Bruce), a book that educated people mention as having a lot of wisdom in it (Italie). As it turned out, pretty much the whole book was just made up, and it was made up by a guy who is the opposite of who he was pretending to be (D. T. Carter). Even his name, Forrest Carter, was fake. Fake is one thing, but besides using a fake name, he took the first name, Forrest, from some big racist he liked, Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader who founded the Klan (D. T. Carter). That’s okay if he wanted to write a novel or something, but he made everybody believe that his book was true. There’s different ways to look at “true”. One way is to consider whether something is accurate or a lie. Another way is to consider if the underlying message in a book is one that helps people in their life, in a good way. This author lied about his name, lied about his culture, lied about his childhood background, lied about having any wisdom inside himself that can help others. Imagine that you read a really beautiful poem. You could feel the meaning of that poem deep inside you. You change how you think about yourself and you change how you think about other people and nature, and even God, because of what you heard in that poem. So then imagine that you found out it was written by the devil himself. It would leave you feeling sick. Oprah Winfrey explained that even though she liked the book a lot, she couldn’t look at it the same anymore, after finding out about the man who wrote it (Italie). When I found out about the author, I also started to feel differently about what I had read. For example, I now understood that the author’s hatred was also in Little Tree, because he also didn’t like the government, teachers, and organized society (F. Carter). Now, instead of being amused by Little Tree’s opinions, I felt sick because I understood now that what was underneath it was the very dangerous hatred of a very evil man. With that hatred, he had killed people and inspired a lot of racist violence. That is not amusing at all. That is what probably happened to some people who read this book. They maybe started to appreciate nature more, and the simple things in life, and they changed what they thought is important, all because of reading this book. It’s a book people talked about and studied and learned from. Then came proof that the author is evil, like the devil; that he doesn’t care at all about the values he talked about in the book. Maybe it was a big joke the author was playing on a world he didn’t like. Maybe he wanted to rip off society spiritually. The danger of this book is that the bitter taste you get from finding this out can make you not believe in anything sweet, so that you don’t trust what is simple and pretty and seems honest ever again. In that way I think this book is an exploding bullet, and should never be given to anyone to read. Little Tree was a lie and is still being exploited to injure people’s spirits. Works Cited Bruce, David. Forrest Carters The Education of Little Tree: A Discussion Guide. Athens, Ohio: author, 2008. Carter, Dan T. "The Transformation of a Klansman." 4 October 1991. New York Times. 21 November 2011 . Carter, Forrest. The Education of Little Tree. Albuquerque: New Mexico Press, 1997. Italie, Hillel. "The Education of Oprah Winfrey." 21 November 2007. Turtle Talk. 21 November 2011 . Read More